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Horoscopes by Rob Brezsny


Week of August 13th, 2015

♋ CANCERIAN

(June 21-July 22)
In 1504, Michelangelo finished his sculpture of the Biblical hero David. But he hadn't been the first person to toil on the 17-foot-high block of marble. Forty years earlier, the artist Agostino di Duccio was commissioned to carve David out of the stone. His work was minimal, however. He did little more than create the rough shape of the legs and torso. In 1476, Antonio Rossellino resumed where Agostino had stopped, but he didn't last long, either. By the time Michelangelo launched his effort, the massive slab had languished for 25 years. I see parallels between this story and your own, Cancerian. I suspect that you will be invited to take on a project that has been on hold or gotten delayed. This may require you to complete labors that were begun by others -- or maybe instigated by you when you were in a very different frame of mind.

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"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." So begins Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. I'd like to inspire you to write a story of your own that begins like that. For help, tune into your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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To be the best pronoiac explorer you can be, I suggest you adopt an outlook that combines the rigorous objectivity of a scientist, the "beginner's mind" of Zen Buddhism, the "beginner's heart" of pronoia, and the compassionate friendliness of the Dalai Lama. Blend a scrupulously dispassionate curiosity with a skepticism driven by expansiveness, not spleen.

To pull this off, you'll have to be willing to regularly suspend your brilliant theories about the way the world works. Accept with good humor the possibility that what you've learned in the past may not be a reliable guide to understanding the fresh phenomenon that's right in front of you. Be suspicious of your biases, even the rational and benevolent ones. Open your heart as you strip away the interpretations that your emotions might be inclined to impose.

"Before we can receive the unbiased truth about anything," wrote my teacher Ann Davies, "we have to be ready to ignore what we would like to be true."

At the same time, don't turn into a hard-ass, poker-faced robot. Keep your feelings moist and receptive. Remember your natural affection for all of creation. Enjoy the power of tender sympathy as it drives you to probe for the unimaginable revelations of every new moment. "Before we can receive the entire truth about anything," said Ann Davies, "we have to love it."